Moonshine

by Jasmine Gower

  Exchanging only a brief greeting with her ogre friend, Daisy went directly to the brewery, hanging by the entrance as she watched Mr Swarz and Angel work. They were in their silly aprons and masks again, though they were not working over one of the giant vats this time. Instead, they both leaned over a worktable pushed against the nearest wall, with Angel working some small grinder machine and Mr Swarz measuring out small jars of what appeared to be honey from a clay pot. Over the clanking and screeching of Angel’s little machine, neither heard Daisy’s soft footfalls. She had to half-shout over the monstrous noise.

  “Mr Swarz?”

  Angel paused and they both looked up at her. “Yes, Miss Dell? Is there a problem?” Mr Swarz asked.

  “No, sir, just a phone call from Mr Sanders. He didn’t tell me the nature of his inquiry, but he wants you to call him right back. He says it’s urgent.”

  Daisy expected this information to spark concern, maybe even panic, from her boss, but he only offered a scoff muffled by the mask covering his mouth. “Sanders’ shoes would come untied and he’d call it urgent. I’ll contact him later. Thank you, Miss Dell.”

  Daisy was ready to turn away and head back to her workstation, but Mr Swarz caught her eye before she could. “You taught me something of your magic yesterday. Would you care to better know how mana works?”

  She hesitated, torn between a desire to spend some time away from the boss who had only the day before told her outright that she was wasting her life and a genuine curiosity about her company’s primary product. Most of what she knew about mana, after all, was the same kind of propaganda that Franklin Blaine fed to his listeners, and though she might acknowledge that it was propaganda, it still left her ignorant.

  Swallowing her wounded pride, she stepped into the room. “All right, sure.” Mr Swarz gestured her closer to the worktable, and she obliged.

  “Part of why so many methodical magicians have flocked to Ashland is because one of the primary ingredients to mana is the dust of a gemstone that is relatively common in the area.” He nodded toward the hand grinder, and Daisy was close enough to catch a glimpse in the dish at the bottom of the machine, filled with slivers of sparkling blue gemstone dust. “Likely the volcanic activity from centuries past shifted the geological contents of the region, bringing the stone up closer to the surface where it might not normally be. It is called thaumaturcite.”

  “And it’s edible?”

  “In small doses, not unlike salt.” He took a small pinch from Angel’s collection and displayed it in his palm for Daisy. The light from the glyphs on the walls played against the reflective dust specks, sparkling them like glitter. “It’s the source of mana’s distinctive color, as well as the glow. When paired with sugar beet fructose, raw honey, and gymnopilus mushroom spores, its chemical components can restore the energy pushed from the body by magic.” That then explained the pot of honey sitting next to the grinding machine.

  “Where do you find thaumaturcite?”

  Mr Swarz returned the gem dust to the dish under the machine. “Oh, it turns up in rivers, occasionally, or out in the wetlands to the south. Our company works alongside several, um… independent contractors in rural areas–” which Daisy took to mean hapless rubes living too far outside of civilization for law enforcement to bother with “–and the Pasternacks are generally responsible for picking up the materials from those sources and delivering them here, in addition to running finished products out to our clients.”

  Daisy shook her head. “How do people even discover that you can create something like this?” It was rhetorical, just meant to express mild amazement, but Mr Swarz actually laughed.

  “Oh, I’m sure Angel or I could go into the history of that, if you’re truly curious, but I’m afraid either of us would lecture about it endlessly.” His mouth was obscured, so she couldn’t tell if he was smiling, but there was a passion in his eyes when he spoke. Daisy was astounded enough to forget her recent frustrations with him. This was something that made Mr Swarz genuinely fulfilled – maybe even happy.

  “How did you come into magic, anyway? Either of you?” she asked. Some of the delight faded from Mr Swarz’s eyes, replaced with reflexive wariness, but Daisy didn’t take it personally. She had been just as mistrustful when he had asked her similar questions.

  Angel did not, apparently, hold the same reservations. “As a bored teenager,” she answered as she removed the dish from below the grinder to dump the thaumaturcite dust into a glass jar set to her right, “I was one of those bright children whose education was never challenging enough, and my parents’ friends were all wealthy elites. I found myself dragged to snooty galas more than I could stand, but at one of them I was introduced to a young woman whom I found considerably more interesting than anyone else in my parents’ social circle.

  “We became close, though never quite lovers – not from a lack of effort on my part. I was rather smitten with her, but she thought I was too young. Regardless, she was a good friend to me, and she could see that I was not living up to my potential, so she introduced me to her small library of methodical theory texts. From there, I was able to search out more on my own, as well as locating mana suppliers. When I was in college, I studied chemistry so that I might learn how to make my own.”

  She spoke so casually of it, like it was no big thing that she had learned a rare skill frowned upon by her society as a teenager and then taught herself to keep her practice of it sustainable as a college student.

  “And you, Mr Swarz?” Daisy asked.

  He pulled down the mask covering the lower half of his face, revealing a mouth drawn taut in a pensive line. His nostalgia for his beginnings with magic, it seemed, was not as sweet as Angel’s. “Well, you know of my injuries. As an adolescent, I was frustrated to be physically limited in such a way. It still impacts me now, but it was much worse then. I could not walk at all without a crutch, and even then not always, and my right hand was fully unusable. When I came into my teenage years, I wanted to help provide for my mother, but I had no options for work that could accommodate my needs.”

  It was only then that he smiled even faintly at the memories, one corner of his lip turning up in a sort of mechanical imitation of mischief. It looked bitter, even cruel, on his sharp-featured face.

  “We had these neighbors, an older couple from Glynland who went to church services twice a week. They hated magicians, even back then – they thought magicians were responsible for the famine in Glynland seventy years previously. These two would always catch my mother when she was coming back from the grocery store, standing on their porch and asking her in these frantic, wheezing voices if she had heard about ‘what the magic devils were up to now.’” Daisy hoped for a hair of a second that Mr Swarz would actually imitate their voices, but of course he didn’t give in to such silliness, regardless of the faint smirk he wore. “If they had any clue that they’d be giving me ideas to help cope with my condition, perhaps they would have kept their bitter judgments to themselves.”

  “How did you learn it, though?”

  Mr Swarz shrugged, removing his work gloves and setting them on the table. “Oh, I was always a bookish boy, and I could stagger as far as the nearest library well enough. Again, this was before the big anti-magician scares were in full-swing, so the libraries still had a few obscure books on the topic tucked away.”

  “You taught yourself entirely, then?”

  “No. I didn’t understand a word of it, at first. What I did was find the books I could on the topic, particularly the newer materials, then I sought out their authors. One of the methodical theorists whose texts I had found happened to be giving a lecture at one of the universities. I traveled there, sneaked in, listening to the lecture, and cornered the man afterward.”

  “And he took you under his wing?”

  “No. He ignored me.” Daisy frowned. Mr Swarz’s story didn’t have an engaging flow to it at all. “I was just a crippled boy from the poor part of town. Methodical magic has a
lways had something of a reputation for belonging to the elites of Ashland, even as it was pushed underground in recent years.

  “He had an apprentice, though – a young woman born to fortune but disabled like myself. He would have never, certainly, taken anything less than the offspring of one of his wealthy friends under his tutelage, but his apprentice was not so narrow-minded. Grey was moved by my passion and dedication, and she established a correspondence with me to school me in the craft. I soon became skilled enough to focus on spells that would help mend my body. Although some of my injuries are too severe for even the most advanced magicians I have ever met, I was able to repair myself enough that I could become a functioning member of society, as I had intended. But by then, Grey and I were both quite tired of society. Grey established the Stripes and brought me on to assist.”

  “And you just kept going with it? Because it’s your job?” Even as she asked it, she knew it couldn’t be true. She had seen the way his eyes lit up.

  “I found something fulfilling in magic. Maybe it was the childhood crippled by injury, but to have power, some semblance of control in my life and upon the world – it meant everything to me. I was healed enough during my tutelage under Grey to work normal jobs like all the other children in my neighborhood, and I was paid exceedingly well for the position I have now, back when the Stripes were first formed. Magic kept my mother and I from starving, but even more than that, the mystery of it all, the inquiry… it resonated with me.”

  He shrugged, trying so laughably hard to appear nonchalant. “I suppose because of my disability, I never felt I could focus on my education. But I’ve always had a mind for academia, and magic was my first proper outlet into that.” He took a glance at the jar Angel had filled with ground thaumaturcite, but Daisy couldn’t read his steely expression.

  “Well,” she said, taking a step back, “I should probably return to my desk, huh? In case Mr Sanders calls again.”

  Mr Swarz looked up at her, a startled gleam to his eye like he had forgotten she was there. “Oh, I suppose so. But if Sanders continues to harass you, just tell him I’m already investigating the matter.” When Daisy opened her mouth to protest, Mr Swarz waved a hand. “He’s not clever enough to figure it out.”

  “Of course, Mr Swarz.” Daisy left them to clean up their workspace. Back upstairs, she didn’t see Mr Swarz and Angel return to the office until toward the end of the work day. She was pleased for it, happy to have a quiet day at her desk occupied primarily by busywork and reading. It made her feel, for the first time in a number of days, that she was an ordinary Modern Girl working an ordinary day job.

  Amelia surprised Daisy the next afternoon with a visit to the office. The front door slammed open as she staggered in overburdened with a cardboard box cradled in her arms. Daisy was at her desk, trying to locate a hole in it that might have matched the loose screw she found on the floor that morning, but she sat up straight as Amelia approached. After Vinnie’s raging visit to complain about his paycheck, Daisy was a little nervous about the warehouse folks coming up to the main office, but Amelia only stepped up to drop the box on Daisy’s desk and paused to inhale several labored breaths.

  “What’s all this?” Daisy asked.

  Amelia lifted the lid off the box, exposing several thick stacks of paper slips bundled together. “Patron accounts – settled tabs and all that. Help me file them in Swarz’s office?”

  “Shouldn’t they go to Rudolph?”

  “Nope. Vinnie already ran the numbers. Here, help me lift this beast.” Amelia grabbed one end and Daisy stood to take the other, and together they awkwardly hobbled into Mr Swarz’s office. He and Angel had gone out together for a late lunch, but Daisy trusted Amelia that they were allowed in there to file the accounts. Plopping the box down in front of the wall of disorderly client files, Amelia got right to work grabbing a stack and pulling out sheets. “Here, you find the folder that matches the client number.” Daisy glanced at the files along the wall, and when Amelia saw her grimace, she added, “They aren’t in alphabetical order or anything, so good luck.”

  Daisy did her best hunting down the files that Amelia called for, glad to be up from her desk even as she felt a little swept away by Amelia’s sudden appearance. It was easy but boring work, and as they made progress Daisy tried striking up a conversation. “So, Vinnie does accounting, too?”

  “Only because he doesn’t trust Rudolph with it.”

  “But isn’t he a bartender?”

  Amelia shrugged. She handed Daisy the last sheet in her current stack and reached down to fish out another. “I mean, downstairs we split the work however we have to. The basic breakdown is Vinnie at the bar, me at the tables, Jonas at the door, and Regina on the stage, and we all play a part in guarding the supply down there, but honestly? Stripes is starting outgrow its unders. We’re a bit understaffed, even since you came on board.”

  Outgrow its unders. Daisy liked that saying – it sounded like something Amelia had picked up from Frisk, which reminded Daisy: “Is Frisk feeling any better?”

  Amelia kept her eyes focused on the papers in her hand. “Oh, yeah. She’s doing a lot better. Um.” She pulled loose the next account to be filed, but she paused before she read the client number to Daisy. “Thanks, actually. I probably should have said it sooner–”

  “Thanks for what?”

  Amelia looked up to wrinkle her nose at Daisy. “Oh, don’t try to be coy with me. You saved my girl’s skin at the Gin Fountain. If you hadn’t helped her get out of there, she could have been found by cops, or–” She didn’t finish the thought out loud, shaking her head like she was trying to shoo the very notion away. “I mean, it’s not the first time she’s been shot at, but no matter how tough she thinks she is, she can’t get out of every scrape on her own. So, thanks.”

  Daisy couldn’t have just left a friend in the middle of all that, but it would be rude to brush off the compliment by pointing that out. Instead, she said, “Of course, Amelia. I’d do it for any of you.”

  Amelia smiled, her lovely brown eyes sparkling with genuine warmth until she seemed to think better of it, and that smile shifted just so to became a sardonic grin. “You did kind of put her car through hell, though. What did you even do to it?”

  Heat rushed up to Daisy’s cheeks even though she knew that Amelia was just joshing her. “I don’t know how to drive! If Frisk didn’t want me to beat up her car, she shouldn’t have fainted on me!” Amelia laughed, but she was quick to get back to work listing off client files for Daisy to dig up. They kept diligently at it until they reached the final stack, around which point Angel and Mr Swarz returned from lunch and stepped into his office.

  “Miss Estévez,” Mr Swarz said with a nod. “How goes the filing?”

  “Not so bad this month. Shutting down for a few days means less paperwork.” She gestured at the wall as Daisy searched around for the current client file she needed. “Wouldn’t take so long if you bothered to get this in any semblance of order, though.”

  “Sounds like a job for Daisy,” Angel suggested. Daisy’s heart nearly stopped at the suggestion, and she turned in wide-eyed horror to Amelia.

  Amelia offered her a subtle wink before saying to Angel, “Actually, if you can budget it out, I could use some overtime on an off day.”

  Angel and Mr Swarz both nodded. “I think we can make that work,” Angel said. “But why don’t you leave the rest of this filing to Daisy today? The others will need help getting ready to open downstairs.”

  Amelia handed Daisy the remaining half of the final stack and picked the box up off the floor. “Right. Just don’t schedule me for this weekend. The girls and I are going for a day trip.” She looked to Daisy. “You should come, too. We’re meeting at Market Street Deli in the morning.”

  Between the mundane office tasks and an invitation to dally about with the other Stripes’ girls, Daisy could almost forget about everything that had happened with the Gin Fountain. “I’d love to, thank you.” Amel
ia offered her another smile before leaving, and Angel also departed to return to her own office. Only Mr Swarz remained.

  “Have you got much left?” he asked, glancing at the files she held.

  She cocked her head. “Well, no, but it’s going to take me the rest of the day finding what I need in this disaster. So.” She pulled a sheet loose from the bundle. “Why don’t I let you know the number, and you find the file?”

  Chapter 9

  At the end of that week, Daisy met the other girls at the Market Deli on Brand Street, about three blocks around the corner from the Stripes front office and four blocks from the backway to the speakeasy. Frisk was parked along the side of the road, leaning against the hood of her car with Amelia beside her, their arms wrapped around each other’s waists. They kept their eyes on the deli’s outdoor counter, waiting for Regina to order a milkshake.

  “Is Vicks joining us?” Daisy asked as she approached Amelia and Frisk.

  Frisk shook her head. “Nah, she went out with other friends last night and is still hung over.” It struck Daisy how alien it was to meet her coworkers in the light of the afternoon like this, during hours when most of them likely worked or slept. Amelia wore a sort of old-fashioned navy blue dress and an embroidered face mask, and Frisk was dressed in what appeared to be some of Vicks’ boy clothes – a loose white button-up and brown, high-waisted slacks. Daisy’s neighbor’s radio had said that morning that ash clouds were expected to sweep into the lowlands, and Amelia and Frisk must have heard a similar report and dressed down for the event. Daisy herself had donned a somewhat tattered steel grey dress – so worn that she didn’t mind if it got smudged by smoke and soot, but still nice enough.

  When Regina returned with a milkshake in a round paper cup, Frisk rounded them all up into the car, and they set off.